Practice makes (close to) perfect
Devin McCourty may be a rookie in name, but he’s not a rookie in game.
Twelve games into his career, first-round pick out of Rutgers has proven his mettle as a starting cornerback in the NFL. Collecting his sixth interception tonight on an errant Mark Sanchez pass, he is now two shy of Mike Haynes’s team rookie record of eight, set in 1976.
While Haynes is enshrined in the Hall of Fame, we’re not putting McCourty– to borrow the famous words of Bill Parcells — in Canton just yet, fellas. But after yet another playmaking performance last night, it’s apparent that he’s going to be a cornerstone of the Patriots’ defense for a long time.
He’s certainly already sounding like a veteran. When asked postgame about the Patriots’ defensive performance — they came into the game as the league’s 32d-ranked pass defense, but picked off Sanchez three times — he echoed the theme of the night among his veteran teammates.
“We just came out and executed,” said McCourty. “Every time I get interviewed I say the same thing. We’re trying to improve week by week, and we’re improving in practice. Today it really showed on the field. We’re not worried about what anybody says about stats and all that. We’re just trying to improve and play.”
The common theme among the Patriots, from McCourty to veterans such as James Sanders and Vince Wilfork, was that their game night performance came as a direct result of a great stretch of practices since their last game on Thanksgiving against the Lions.
“We used our time wisely this week,” said Sanders, who continued his recent stretch of big plays with an interception and 28-yard return of a Sanchez pass in the fourth quarter. “We prepared extremely well. Like said after the game, we had our best week of practice the whole year. And we put it together for 60 minutes. It was the first time all season we put it together for 60 minutes. And like we said, each week we’re getting closer, we’re getting closer, we’re getting closer, and I think we went out there and made a nice statement tonight.”
When he wasn’t going out of his way praising McCourty as a “shut-down corner” and a “hell of a player,” Wilfork was emphasizing that the importance of a good week of practice can’t be oversold.
“I think we probably had our best practice all year this week from Tuesday on throughout the weekend,” said Wilfork. “You just feel that everybody in this locker room was gelling out in practice. We weren’t surprised with the outcome today.”
However, there was one rather notable Patriot who wasn’t sure this week’s practices were better than usual.
“It was a good week, I don’t know,” said Brady. “I think we practice pretty well all the time. There’s not too often that we don’t practice well because we’ll be out there all day if we don’t practice well; he’ll just keep us out there.”
Whatever they’re doing in practice, after a 42-point victory to improve to 10-2, this much is certain: It’s working.
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